Virginia Tech Head Coach Scot ThomasOpening Statement…“The whole region matches up well, so we knew we were going to be in a dog fight. We gave them two runs and they gave a run back. It was a tight ball game and an exciting one for everyone to watch. I’m glad we won it and get the first win out of the way.”

On facing the Big East player of the year for the last out…“Kelly really doesn’t show any emotion. She is a freshman that acts like a senior. Her last pitch was probably the hardest pitch she threw tonight. She reached back and found a little extra. She made a big pitch at a big time.”

On what is going to separate the teams…“Any of these teams could win. You can’t count Marshall out even though they are a four seed. The rest of us are very balanced squads. You have to minimize the mistakes and magnify the other teams. That is what happened in this game. You are going to see some great games this weekend and I expect all of them to be tight.”

On staying in the winner’s bracket…“You save on pitchers and can have a positive attitude as you try to work to get in Sunday’s championship game. It is huge to get this win behind us.”

On Kat Banks’ homerun…“She has tremendous bat speed. As the kids get older, the scouting reports get out there and you can work on certain weaknesses. She really got hot here late in the season. She has hit some big homeruns for us. Last year in the ACC tournament, she hit a grand slam against Maryland. She has quick hands and just needs to follow through the plan.”

Virginia Tech #4 OF Kat BanksOn her homerun…“Well my first at-bat I struck out and wasn’t seeing the ball so I went up there my second at-bat more calm and not as jittery. I was just trying to take deep breaths before that at-bat and I figured she would come with a change-up because I knew that was on my scouting report that I can’t hit a change-up.”

On coming back from the error to deliver the game winning runs…“The team honestly, I give it to the team because even though that was my mistake that I let that ball get by me and that scored two huge runs. So when Jasmin (Harrell) came out of the game and she was saying Kat, keep your head up, that’s not your fault, and everybody was yelling Kat you’re fine. So when the opportunity came up I was like, I gotta help them out now.”

Virginia Tech #25 P Kelly HeinzOn coming relieving…“We have a great defense behind us at all times and even though things haven’t gone our way before, we picked each other up really well. When I came in Jasmin (Harrell) had thrown really well and she just gave me a couple tips when I first started and said just go for it and go right at them, throw strikes and that is what my mindset was going in was to throw strikes and get ahead in the count.”

Facing the Big East Player of the Year with the winning run on base…“I was excited. It wasn’t the first time this has happened this season, it happened earlier in the year with UCLA. I think I was kind of in the same mindset there that I was in that game. Just thinking, we can do this, my defense behind me is great and they have been playing great all season so I was just trying to get a ground ball or pop up or anything and we will be good.”

Notre Dame Head Coach Deanna GumpfOpening statement…“We didn’t play well enough to win the ball game. Simple. You’ve got to pitch well, hit well and throw some defense and two out of three of those we didn’t do real well today.”

On Laura Winter’s performance…“Laura looked like she was pitching defensively. Knowing her and watching her, how many games I’ve watched her this year, she’s a junior and she’s been our go-to for three years. She pitched defensively and I haven’t seen her do that in a long time. I don’t know if she was trying to do too much, I don’t know. I have to talk to her about it. I don’t know what she was trying to do but she was not pitching her game at all. If you know Laura, everybody know, who knows her, saw that.”

On Winter’s pitching…“By defensively, she didn’t go in and attack her hitters. When she’s at her best, she’s attacking the hitter. They don’t know what’s coming. I felt like today she was getting behind and she doesn’t get behind if you know her. She was completely out of character as a pitcher. I think that did carry over to her at-bats.”

On if getting to the championship is harder…“It’s not. Logically, it’s no steeper because here’s the deal. If we win this game, the last game, we play the next game. Let’s say we lose that game. We’re in the exact same position as we are losing this game. It doesn’t matter. We got to win. We got to win four games.”

On the other teams in the regional…“I would agree. I think we all have different strengths but we all have strengths. If we’re bringing our best game, it’s anybody’s game. That’s the fun part about it because the game does not know who’s supposed to win.”

On Winter’s performance…“I just straight up tell her and talk to her. Ask her what she’s feeling, what she’s thinking. I don’t know If she put too much on her shoulders, maybe she’s trying to be perfect. I mean, who knows with these kids. They’re kids and we put a lot on them and we trust in them and expect them to perform perfectly and sometimes they don’t. I chalk it up. Sometimes, you just chalk it to it’s just a bad, stinking day.”

Notre Dame #40 C Amy BuntinOn their mindset knowing they’ll have to win two games tomorrow to advance to Sunday …“I think if we take one inning at a time, one pitch at a time, kind of slow it down a bit, we will be just fine.”

On Virginia Tech’s relief pitcher Kelly Heinz …“I thought she moved the ball well. She came up and just had an in-and-out pitch. For me, personally she would in, in, in and then go out and try and surprise you. I thought we were on her pretty well.”

Notre Dame #1 OF Kelsey ThorntonOn their mindset knowing they’ll have to win two games tomorrow to advance to Sunday …“Now we know that we have to attack. Today we didn’t play our best game but we definitely saw highlights, different bits and pieces that were great so if we just bring those all together for one whole game we will definitely win tomorrow so we just have to attack.”

On Virginia Tech’s relief pitcher Kelly Heinz …“She did a nice job of making some of our hitters chase some of her pitches so she did a nice job with that.”

On the tension that Laura Winter faced in her final at bat …“I think as an athlete, that’s kind of the thing we live for. That’s the big moment, the big stage to step up and unfortunately for us it didn’t work out this time but next time I think she comes up in that situation and she pulls through for us because she has so many times before.”